For this
reason I shut the door. There were no lamps--only candles in long
glass shades. An oil wick was set in the bathroom.
For bleak, unadulterated misery that d?k-bungalow was the worst
of the many that I had ever set foot in. There was no fireplace, and
the windows would not open; so a brazier of charcoal would have
been useless. The rain and the wind splashed and gurgled and
moaned round the house, and the toddy palms rattled and roared.
Half a dozen jackals went through the compound singing, and a
hyena stood afar off and mocked them. A hyena would convince a
Sadducee of the Resurrection of the Dead--the worst sort of Dead.
Then came the _ratub_--a curious meal, half native and half English
in composition--with the old _khansamah_ babbling behind my chair
about dead and gone English people, and the wind-blown candles
playing shadow-bo-peep with the bed and the mosquito-curtains.
It was just the sort of dinner and evening to make a man think of
every single one of his past sins, and of all the others that he
intended to commit if he lived.
Pages:
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73